Clyde had a good idea the second time the party took an excursion into Kuluth-Mar (the first excursion ended with a well-timed teleport saving the party, four out of six of whom had been feebleminded by the insidious gaze of the worm nagas). Since he knew what Kyuss looked like as a mortal, he would scout ahead in a hat of disguise. This was a poor decision when he decided to open the door to the torture chambers... and Kelvos had a true seeing spell on. Clyde got a single action (a good one - the confused sword archons quickly turned on each other) before a single spell destroyed him, body and soul - a destruction. A few rounds later, as the party converged on a righteous might-ted, invisible Kelvos, the fallen eladrin noticed they were in a nice, neat little cone shape. One prismatic spray later, and the necromancer Filge was full of poison. A revivify brought him back in short order, however.

Pity poor Cosgrak. After a crit from a power attacking Sword of Kyuss put Sasha Theldrik the barbarian down into the negatives, he boldly moved forward to heal, despite the injuries he'd taken from the flame strike of a wormcaller (he was standing outside the library at the time, so there was no chance of damaging the precious books). And then he took a full attack from the same Sword right as Sasha was getting to her feet. So soon after his last death (to a barbed devil's crushing hug) did Cosgrak find himself once more "suckling the great teat of death", as he puts it. It's hard to invent poetic imagery with a low Charisma...

The last two deaths occurred last night. The party was low on spells & wanted to rest, but insisted on resting in the lower chambers of the ziggurat (in the room w/ the preserved bodies), even though the wizard had 2 d-doors left & could've spirited them out. I could've let them be, but since I felt like I'd given them plenty of warnings (ex: "Are you sure you want to rest inside the Ziggurat of Kyuss?"), I decided to have the 2 wormcallers from the lake room ambush them.

Two of the six party members were on watch (cleric of Pelor & ranger), & both had detected presence of undead the cleric has a mace which glows when undead are within 60'). Both have a round to react. The cleric casts death ward on himself while the ranger, for some reason, decides to try out some new spells (starting w/ "detect favored enemy"). Neither warns the sleepers. The sleepers do awake on the next round when the wormcallers, coming from two different directions, set off the alarm spell the ranger placed earlier. However, they're so close it's too late. The wormcallers use their quicked hold persons & freeze the ranger (cleric saves), then dump a pair of flame strikes on the sleepers, knocking the Heironean cleric into the negatives. The rogue & paladin use some healing magic on the Heironean cleric & the wizard, who cuts off one of the wormcallers with a wall of force. The ranger breaks free from the hold person & on her next action decides to try out another new spell (something non-core that give a bonus on favored enemy damage), which the wormcaller saves against. The wormcaller cut off by the wall of force retreats to come around the other direction, while the second one lets another flame strike hit the former sleepers, killing the Heironean cleric & the wizard. The ranger finally decides to use her bow, but the Pelorian cleric is the one who brings the creature down with his mace of disruption. By the time the other wormcaller comes around, the Pelorian has raised the mage & everyone is ready for it, so it retreats.

Believe it or not, even after all that, some of the party members were still considering staying in the ziggurat to finish resting! Luckily, the mage didn't lose his d-door when he was raised, so they were able to get out.

Two more bit the dust last week, although they were promptly raised. It was the first week of Library of Last Resort, and the party tactically misfired against the advanced octopus tree. At first, I thought the fight was going to be a breeze for the party. They detected evil on the thing before they came in range, they had mass electricity resistance on (to guard against the call lightning) and they started pounding it with spells and missiles from range. Then they got a bit unwise after the wizard cast a haste spell, and the four main melee guys decided to attack physically. The scout and the fighter both have spring attack and were able to do a little damage and get out of range. The paladin and the monk don't and were both stuck within range of the tree's physical attacks. Each got targeted by four arms and took over 110 points of damage in one round. Both had taken a bit of damage previously and went down in a heap. If they had just stayed at range, they probably would have taken it down without much damage in another couple of rounds. Also, if the fighter and scout had stayed in close and forced the tree to divide its attacks further, they all would have taken damage, but nobody would have died. A rare tactical error for my experienced group of players. Grand total is 17 PC deaths in the AP so far, but no TPKs.

Way back in the very first adventure (The Whispering Cairn) I killed the entire party with Filge alone.

No death's since then until the last session (The Champion's Belt). We had 3. Froghemoth killed the half-orc frenzied berserker. Slay living door trap killed the tibbit rogue (but she had a contingent spell cast on her and is now in the body of a female orog). Finally, the Apostle of Kyuss killed the drow weretiger duskblade. The only party memember to survive was the avariel favored soul.

And, 50,000 people died when the ritual was completed. So much for Waterdeep. :)

Despite numerous attempts on the part of the group I run to cause a TPK, usually by not listening to Duran (the human marshal and the party's elected leader), there has only been two deaths.

PC Name: Alastor Syro ir'Desekane
Adventure: Hall of Harsh Reflections
Location of Death: Zyrxog's lair
Catalyst: curiosity (aka death by advanced octopin)
Long Description: Alastor was an extremely intelligent scholar (savant/archivist). But, like some many highly intelligent individuals, her curiosty often got the better of her. After barely disabling the brain trap while the rest of her party tried to kill her, Alastor decide to take a closer look at the large glass chamber in which the advanced octopin resided (having noticed movement within it). Angered at her disturbing it, the beast promtly ripped the still injured Alastor in two and then proceeded to nearly kill the rest of the party before being killed itself.

NPC Name: Bastion
Adventure: Champion's Belt
Location of Death: The Arena
Catalyst: Flaming adamantine bastard sword
Long Description: Bastion, an adamantine bodied warforged knight, was charged by a raging team Pitch Blade as soon as the match started. Within two rounds he had been reduced to component parts as multiple critical hits shattered his body and left the party in a state of shock and fear.

Serai was the first to go. Upon entering the Lake of Worms, both wormcallers brought unholy fire upon the party, and the overworm arose from the depths. Before Serai could scramble back, the overworm was upon him, killing him in a single snap of his jaws. Falth was able to use the Ring of the Wind Dukes to become a line of lightning and move to one of the islands behind the overworm, but hadn't been healed from the flames in time for a single snap of the worm's jaws to seal his fate. Fortunately, the wormcallers were soon dealt with, either killed or controlled by Filge, the party's death master, and the overworm was brought down in a blitz of massive damage.

I killed my PCs so many times in the Spire of Long Shadows it wasn't even funny. More than one PC died twice, and all but one of them died at least once. They are a bit shy on money right now after paying for all the resurrections, but they are doing ok so far in LoLR. In all, I have had one death in 3FoE, followed by a TPK later in that same adventure, one death in Hall of Harsh Reflections, one death in The Champion's Games, and six deaths in the Spire of Long Shadows.

Night had fallen after searching for the night twist as they were close to finding the tree they hear the creature's mournful song. Casper fails his will save and begins to follow the song. The rest of the group follows as a way to find the tree. During combat the tree casts weird on the party. Casper already with a penality to his saves fails both saving throws...R.i.p. Casper. Campaign death number 9

Not actually a character death because due to player not being able to attend they went a little weakened, but

Tully the monk had made a very good diplomacy check with the earth elemental (he spoke Terran for characterisation reasons) so when the player couldn't attend he stopped with the elemental for a chat (and to get a sorcerer level next). This made the party a little weaker (Halfling Rogue 2, Gnome Artificer 2, and Xim). Xim : 'I ride up to the windows and look in' statement took me by surprise but he failed a listen check and the owlbear caught scent of the intruder. It attacked by crashing through the window and giving Xim a welcoming hug - bless!

Xim dropped to 1 hit point after a short while and then I fudged the roll to let him get out of the grip to avoid the character death. They legged it and the owlbear stayed within the confines of the wall around the farmstead.

They rested up and came back with a cleric too. Even then Xim got knocked in to negatives and I overcome the temptation to coup de grace him.

‘Haak’ died heroically after absorbing two rounds of hasted full-attack punishment from Dragotha at the end of the melee in the Writhing Sanctum, damage that would have killed any of his already-wounded comrades. Swinging the Rod of Fury in a two-handed grip, he lived long enough to shatter the great wyrm’s ribcage and see Dragotha’s bones turn to dust around him. Then, his deathless frenzy spent, he expired from his wounds.

Upon reaching the vault containing Dragotha's phylactery, the party was ambushed by Darl Quethos, Krekie, and Mahuudril. Darl unleashed a Wail of the Banshee, and fortunately, all survived but poor Emerd.

Module: Wormcrawl Fissure
Place: The Writhing Sanctum
Catalyst: All gave some, one gave all?
‘Haak?died heroically after absorbing two rounds of hasted full-attack punishment from Dragotha at the end of the melee in the Writhing Sanctum, damage that would have killed any of his already-wounded comrades. Swinging the Rod of Fury in a two-handed grip, he lived long enough to shatter the great wyrm’s ribcage and see Dragotha’s bones turn to dust around him. Then, his deathless frenzy spent, he expired from his wounds.

This is what is called a good death! Perhaps worthy even for apotheosis.

'This is what is called a good death! Perhaps worthy even for apotheosis.'

Well, right on both counts Peruhain...

The party (six PCs) plus gated allies Xitomat (Couatl Monk), Walkyrie XVII (Zelekhut Fighter), Azunai (Planetar) and Galdronnal (Ancient Radiant Dragon Paladin) squared off against a much enhanced Dragotha (Dracolich Lord modified template), a Vrock (Frenzied Berserker) [WotC], a Death Giant (Ur-Priest), an Advanced Devourer, an evolved Bone Naga (Sorceror), four Kyuss Knights (Bucknard/Balakarde’s ex-comrades), Venk, and a posse of Dread Wraiths, reinforced by three Avolakia Priests. (Yes, I scoured the boards for these foes-thanks to all who posted them).
My players love a ‘battle royal’, and I’m happy to oblige-but I also wanted to give a challenge that would demand self-sacrifice from the mostly CN party during this critical battle.
Haakon's player made that sacrifice, through Bucknard's intercession, when the combination of the Vrock minion and Dragotha threatened to overwhelm the party.

By the eleventh round the radiant dragon lay dead at Dragotha's feet, while the Vrock had eviscerated Xitomat in a single round. All PCs were wounded and only the party cleric (of St. Cuthbert) and the planetar were keeping the group alive as the Vrock tore at the Zelekhut who kept trying to entangle him with his chains. The rangers in the group were talking flight, and the halfling archer was already at the exit. (It was fun to see the fear of God in those guys for a change!)

With the demon unkillable and Dragotha well-nigh un-hittable by the three heroes to his front, Haakon ran up the rear steps of the ziggurat and leapt (via air walk) onto Dragotha's back. The Dracolich pirouetted, slamming the former front rank with his tail sweep and rending the dwarf with a double claw/claw/bite.

The slayer spirit of Bucknard, bound to the dwarf's waraxe from earlier, cut through Haak's rage with a harsh whisper-
"The axe must fall-but we will take him with us Haakon. I will bind the demon's frenzy to you, though it means your death-will you accept this doom?" (The player did not hesitate...) "Aye-bring it!" thought the dwarf. The Tripartite Spirit flared (I threw a d20 for a '20', for effect), and the Vrock keened horribly as it's deathless frenzy was siphoned out of it's body and into the Dwarf Slayer. (Dramatic license, but not out of place considering the power and breadth of Bucknard's abilities)

Bereft of the frenzy, the demon (at -357 HP)collapsed in a bloody heap of feathers and bone, while Haakon roared his defiance and, dropping his waraxe, drew out the Rod of Fury.

The following round, while the other heroes again struck at the Dracolich from the rear, Haak (who'd lost initiative)was mortally wounded by four out of six possible attacks (reduced to -213 HP from -47;he'd had close to 480 initially, raging and with Righteous Might)-and a Mass Cure Critical from the Planetar did not change things much. He dealt Dragotha the death-stroke, and then the frenzy ended (as it was pretty much stretching it even for Bucknard to be able to steal an ability like that, and Istus must see to the balance) with Haakon going to his knees in the dust, next to his axe. The figure of a great red-bearded dwarf, smiling, beckoned to him, and at his shoulder Bucknard smiled as well...and the dwarf's body crashed to the ground with a clang and was still.

(And after that, the others still wanted to raise him! Ehhh-I don't think so, but he will possibly make a curtain call in 'New Age' as a gated Einheriar ally-he's got a job to finish!)

FIRST PC DEATH LAST NIGHT!
Name: Leto (Warblade 5)
Location: Shukak's throne room, Twisted Branch Lair
Catalyst: Running ahead, the rest of the party not sticking to the plan, double teamed by Shukak and Kotobas.

After talking to Hishka, the party decided to help in the little coup that was planned. Hishka drew them a map of the lair and showed them where the King's throneroom was. The party followed the path that Hishka showed them. Unfortunately, the Warblade was faster then everyone else and ran ahead while the rest of the party covered the rear to make sure that the lizardfolk wouldn't close in on them. The rogue was the only one who followed the Warblade and contributed some sneak attacking against Shukak. Unfortunately, a raging Kotabas was able to deliver the death blow on an already weakened, flanked Leto.

As Queen once sang "... another one bites the dust." Actually last night it was three other ones, albeit only temporarily. All occurred in LoLR, which is turning into quite a killer module for my group.

First the scout and the main fighter both fell to the Night Twist's weird spell, failing both saves. Then the half-ogre monk got turned into a pull-toy by King Kong (aka the advanced girallon behemoth).

Total body count for my AoW campaign is now 20 and rising.

At the end of the night they encountered (actually, got ambushed by) Darl Quethos and his buddies, and the sorcerer is already down, pummeled into unconsciousness by one of the Sinfire twins in a single round after he dimension doored right next to her in the surprise round. She was the only one to fail her spot check, fortunately, but she represents the better part of their magical firepower. Unfortunately, that's my wife's character, so I'm now sleeping on the couch. Can't wait to see how it plays out next week. One of the twins is also down already, and the other is blinded and battered pretty severely, but the rest of Darl's troop is untouched. It's going to get brutal.

And they haven't even encountered the titan yet, not to mention the dream battle with the Swords and the confrontation with the surly Wild Watcher.

Just when it looked like the group had figured out some nice tactics and spell selections between the casters and tanks, Yu-hai decided to run ahead of everyone and charge. One slay living spell later and Yu-hai is dead in the worm naga tunnels. When we got close to room 10, the group was starting to buff and think about tactics when Yu-hai charged through the door again. This time Garbok ran after Yu-hai to make sure he had some support, and our poor fighter was quickly dropped by Sruggat's finger of death spell. The next session Yu-hai received an exp bonus for asking the casters if they were ready before he charged in to battle. :) This AP has been so much fun! Not sure how I will handle PoRH though, as my hack n' slash group doesn't like talking to anybody. They will want to fight Zeech on the spot. :(

As the party slowly trudged across the countryside, the warlock, using his See Invisible ability, spotted the first group of two bone and one barbed devils. This gave the party an opportunity to take defensive measures, which included our hero casting a circular wall of fire around the party. This proved to be disastrous. A bone devil promptly dropped a wall of ice right down the middle of it, separating the two melee characters from the other three in a storm of steam.

This ring of fire had little effect on the devils, of course, other than it being opaque. So the barbs simply stood back and started throwing Order's Wrath and Unholy Blight while the boners started melee.

Jek, flanked by the party warlock (who could - and did - fly) and the rogue (who promptly fled) was soon trapped against the ice wall, double-dazed by the Wraths and badly hurt by the spells. Then the second wave of devils arrived.

Imaxian the barbed devil couldn't believe his luck when he stepped through the curtain of fire. A soul, ready for the taking.
"Come to me, little Snookums."

Two rounds later, including the only other spell that Jek was able to cast during the battle (which washed up on the shore of spell resistance), and the warmage was fatally skewered. The battle raged on for another couple hours. At no time did the party respond to the calls to "Give me the rod" with anything more than giggles.

The 14th fatality involving 13 characters, and we haven't hit the Spire yet.

Xinga was a slight but fiery woman. She took flak from no one, and usually gave better than she got. While exploring some mines deep below Diamond Lake, Xinga suffered some wisdom drain which brought some of her snarky comments to the surface. Though she was later healed of her affliction, she never seemed to quite rid herself of her acid tongue. Xinga elevated herself above her roguish beginnings in Diamond Lake to realize an amazing aptitude for the arcane arts. Despite her small frame, Xinga was as brave as any of her companion adventurers. While others might hang back in cowardly bids for safety, rallying under the cry of “tactics!” Xinga would stride forward and lay on the magical beat-down. More than once Xinga took great risks, but saved the party’s bacon in doing so.

Eventually, the party found themselves wandering through a mirror maze in a waterfront building somewhere in Greyhawk. A wide swath of dead doppelgangers lay behind them, the most recent had been posing as Xinga herself. Several members of the party took great delight in finally being able to release some built up fury as they killed the doppelganger “Xinga”. The party’s blood was up, and confronted with a final door, they were all too eager to stride forward instead of healing up or discussing tactics. They even left their pet grey render behind, to guard an empty room. A vigorous battle with Telakin ensued, in which every trap in the room was set off. Fireballs exploded, barbarians were slowed, and “Allustan” changed into a raging orc barbarian mid-stride. Telakin found himself pushed off into one of his own pits by the enlarged dwarven rogue. It was here that Xinga made her fatal mistake. She walked up to the edge of the pit to taunt, and rain magic missiles down upon Telakin. However she failed to follow the dwarven rogue’s example and so she did not fall prone to vanish from Telakin’s sight. Knowing a good opportunity when he saw it, Telakin fired off a couple of scorching rays, nailing the previously fireballed Xinga in the head, and killing her instantly.

The battle with Telakin raged on for at least another minute before Xinga’s companions managed to revenge her death. They are still discussing whether to have the acerbic Xinga raised from the dead.

I had a TPK in the three faces of evil. Four PCs and two allied NPCs. After coming down invisibly in the lift, the party see the two tiefling guards. they decide to sneak past them. They inexplicably open the doors to the maze and the act of opening the doors cancels the invisibility. The party then flees into the labyrinth leaving the tieflings behind them to raise the alarm. Sectarian disputes notwithstanding, the Kenku and the tieflings proceed to divide and slaughter the party. The tieflings darken the corridoors, and the kenku imitate the party members shouting and screaming. The party rogue feels something heavy slam into him so he stabs it a few times. the tieflings laugh and lift the darkness long enough to see that he has just filleted the party fighter, who was tied up and gagged. The last party member to survive (lizardfolk druid and estranged son of Shukak hoping to free his tribe from Ilthane) runs out to the elevator room. He is grabbed by the assembled mass of cultists from two of the temples. The Faceless one and Theldrick take turns interrogating him then they flip a coin to see which temple gets to sacrifice him. The faceless one wins and takes a hand and an eye. Theldrick then takes the heart and throws the corpse down the elevator shaft.

My party has been playing Age of Worms for several months now, but I just now found this post. I've slain several over the course of the adventure. I am running the Forgotten Realms version of AoW.

PC Name(s): Belben Carter (mh Paladin of Freedom 2 of Tempus)
and
Tarran Telfar (mh Crusader 2 of Tempus)
Adventure: The Whispering Cairn
Location of Death: Filge's Lab
Catalyst: Death by Zombie
Long Description: Filge was taken down and rendered unconscious and bleeding to death rather easily, but his zombies proved more problematic, eventually cornering Belben. Tarren bravely and selflessly flung himself to the aid of his friend, but both ended up rent limb from limb.

PC Name: Vichand Droverson (mh Mage Blade 3)
Adventure: The Three Faces of Evil
Location of Death: Temple of Bane (Hextor)
Catalyst: Death by summoned fiendish ape
Long Description: Vichand's player misunderstood the room description and thought a stairwell led up to the balcony, so he charged into the room by himself only to find no way up. His allies, who knew there was not a staircase over there, watched him get trapped and then killed by a fiendish ape summoned by Theldrick.

PC Name: Fruos Snayborn (mho Ape Totem Barbarian 4)
Adventure: The Three Faces of Evil
Location of Death: The Faceless One's Lab
Catalyst: Death by acolyte of Myrkul (Vecna)
Long Description: Fruos ended up by himself on the far side of the Faceless One's lab while his entire party was at the door on the other side. Fruos kicked in the door to find a monstrous centipede, the Faceless One and acolytes. He didn't make it.

PC Name: Firsta Perrish (m spryte Ecclesiastic 3/Spryte Faen 1)
Adventure: The Three Faces of Evil
Location of Death: Caverns of Bhaal
Catalyst: Death from arrows and impact
Long Description: Firsta, the replacement character for Fruos (above), proved frustrating due to his limited ability to fly in close quarters. He ended up flying out over some grimlock archers in a ravine who shot him unconscious, and he splattered on the rocks below. He lived up to his namesake, being the first (but not only) character to die that night, and it was his first night of play.

PC Name: Krismorel Silverkin (fh Shaman 4)
Adventure: The Three Faces of Evil
Location of Death: Caverns of Bhaal
Catalyst: Death from falling
Long Description: Krismorel's ally, Valgen, had slipped down a ledge with a silence effect going. He ended up injured at the bottom, but she didn't hear him get hurt. She tried to go down the rope but got killed by the same archers who killed Firsta (above).

PC Name: Brutus Snayborn (mho Fighter 5)
Adventure: Encounter at Cromm's Hold
Location of Death: Lizard Marsh
Catalyst: Death from ghoul feasting
Long Description: While tracking the lizardfolk into the marsh, the party was ambushed by a ghast and his ghouls. Brutus was paralyzed in the attack and partially consumed before his allies could destroy the undead.

PC Name: Camthalion "Cam" Mithrandir (m wild elf Archer-Ranger 6)
Adventure: Encounter at Cromm's Hold
Location of Death: Cromm's Hold
Catalyst: Killed by worms, risen as spawn of Kyuss, put down by party
Long Description: Cam was one of the brave souls who ventured into the basement to bring the battle to the spawn. He succumbed to the fear aura and was infested by a couple of Kyuss worms. He made it out of the basement but soon collapsed dead upstairs. The party thought he had slumped into unconsciousness and were shocked when his body sat bolt upright, worms spewing from his mouth and bursting forth from his eyes. They made short work of him and buried his body at the Hold.

The first wave of 10 Swords clambered over the cliff face to assault the heroes of destiny. Shirin, ever ready to mix it up, shifted and charged, almost destroying one of the swords outright. Then the Swords retaliated. 5 invocations of the worm undid all of Shirin's damage, and a large number of successful hits by the heavy-hitting Swords took her below -10 while the rest of the party could do nothing but watch in horror.

She was restored to life by a revivify spell on the clerics' next action, but was badly shaken and spent a large portion of the rest of the fight healing and picking targets at the edge of the action.

After interrogating Charlgar, the party learned of a vault locked by two magic keys in the Citadel of Weeping Dragons, and the theft and disposal of one of those two keys in the pit. Flying down into the pit, the party encountered the Mother Worm. She opened up with her acid beam, and the party sorceress started passing out Superior Invisibility spells. Dax, now invisible, flew up to attack (and hopefully sneak attack) the Kaiju carrion crawler, only to be foiled by the crawlers blind-fight feat. The crawler then attacked the square that Dax's attack originated from, and passed the conceal check often enough to drop him below -10 in a single full attack. After the battle, the party sat around waiting for the dead invisible rogue to reappear, before restoring him to life with a limited wish (to cast revenance) from the sorcerer followed up with a revivify from the cleric.

At high levels, death seems to just mean the pc sits out the rest of the fight.

Name: Qu'om - Illumian Fighter 2/Wizard 4/Rogue 1
Adventure: Hall of Harsh Reflections (kinda)
Location: On the road to Greyhawk
Catalyst: A roll of 6 on 1d6 for the number of random Displacer beasts encountered.

On the plus side, two of the other players garnered enough xp's to level up! Yay for them!

-Edit-
Almost forgot... Though their names and occupations have been lost to the ravages of time, there was once a stalwart party of four adventurers who lost their lives to a multitude of cultists, skeletons, and one nasty dire boar the FIRST time I tried to run this campaign. That particular group had no interest in continuing the path, sad to say...

Long Description: Khullen and the half-orc paladin (of freedom) engage in a stare-down before combat breaks out. Initiative is rolled. The party wizard casts sleep, taking out Khullen's ranger and the paladin. Khullen rages and smacks the wizard into negatives. The polearm fighter succeeds on a trip attempt, knocking down Galen and hitting him with his free attack. Galen stands up (AoO misses), makes a 5-foot step, and attacks the polearm fighter, hitting with both longsword (a critical) and short sword, taking him out ("Don't piss off the ranger."). The next round, Khullen hits Galen and brings him to -7; he bleeds out before the combat ends.

Overall, the combat worked out the way a party-level + 4 CR encounter should work. Khullen eventually succumbed to a Death Touch by the party's cleric of Wee Jas (the last person standing), after taking out every one else in the party (even the paladin, who the cleric woke up).

PC Name: Sir Lucius Allidore
Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows
Location of Death: Doorway to the Halls of Knowledge
Catalyst: Attacking from prone with only one hit point

Long Description: The party cleric had cast antimagic field in the Halls of Corruption, and he maintained as the crossed over to the Halls of Knowledge. The ruckus they made in the last fight alerted the Wormcaller and the Swords of Kyuss, and the antimagic field saved the party from several magical attacks in the surprise round. Unfortunately in the next few rounds the Lucius was in the field and lacking all his magical support, while the Swords of Kyuss stood just outside of the field and hacked him down to -1. When his fast healing (ex) put him back into positives he did what his character would do and attacked. As it came back to the SoK's turn, let's just say that even in an antimagic field a Sword of Kyuss deals a minimum on 25 points of damage with one attack.

PC Name: Boobsalicious
Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows
Location of Death: Doorway to the Halls of Knowledge
Catalyst: A Wizard stepping up to two Swords of Kyuss

Long Description: In the same event as above, Boobsalicious (Barbarian - 1/Enchantress - 11), had little to do because of the antimagic field. However, when Lucius fell at the door, she raged and charged in, hoping to buy the others some time to come up with a plan. That round, one attack killed the aforementioned Lucius, and three more killed her.

PC Name: Keth
Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows
Location of Death: The Chamber of Ascension
Catalyst: The cleric fumbled on his caster level check.

Long Description: See above. After Boobsalicious fell, the cleric dropped the antimagic field and the party fell back. The remaining members, the cleric, a warmage, and Keth, the half-orc druid, were in dire straits. Keth fully intended to shape shift and fly away, but the cleric told him not to. He had the scroll of greater teleport and could use it with the magic domain, so Keth needed to get close to him. Keth got right in front of him, and he rolled a 1 on his caster level check. Luckily there was no mishap, but now the warmage was held and the Swords of Kyuss advanced. Keth fell. In the next round the cleric made the caster level check and saved the warmage and himself.

After a very successful first day in Kongen Thulnir, finding some very good information about the Citadel of Weeping Dragons and the mysterious vault inside it, and recovering one of the vault keys from the Mother Worm, the party opted to rest within the confines of a Magnificent Mansion spell. Little did they know the gargantuan fang dragon Xyzanth had been dispatched to hunt down Necrozyte's killer. Finding the portal entrance, the Fang laid in ambush, attacking as the party exited the mansion one at a time. The cleric fell back on tactics that proved successful against NEcrozyte and cast Brilliant Blade on the berserker's sword, transforming it into a Brilliant Energy weapon. So empowered, Ba'andrea swung at full power only hitting the dragon once for over 100 damage, but shattering most of his mirror images. Worried that he wouldn't survive another similar exchange of blows, the Fang focused all of his impressive might on the barbarian, bringing her down to -50 hp with a full attack.

"That's not gonna save you," The party cleric taunted as he cast his spell, and a Revanent barbarian arose to finish the fight. She was Revivified after the fight.

Long Story:
(First of all, I just had to make a post on this, of all days!)
As the adventurers were happily travelling down the road, they were waylaid by a couple of true devils. Of course, the Paladin saw this as his "reason for living", and charged the pair of devilish brutes! And, being a Paladin, he felt that he was "protected" by his deity. Our monk foolishly joined the Paladin, while the rest of the party began to disperse in order to "buff-up" before aiding the two brave fools. The devils tried some whacky magic on the two attackers, but being "lawful" in alignment, the spells had no affect on them. Meanwhile, physical attacks by the two fools proved to be almost impossible to land, the AC of the devils was really high! However, to Jensen Banes' credit, his first attack laid one of the devils out hard on the ground! Ah-ha, we believed this was going to be an easy encounter! Except ... as the fray began, each of the other party members found themselves suddenly enveloped in a dome of magical ice, with a devilish creature of their own to contend with! Brilliant use of tactics by our DM!! The Paladin and monk fought on, slowly chipping away at the mean brutes from the nether planes of evil, when suddenly the Paladin was severely thrashed about the head and shoulders and his brains leaked out all over the ground (he sustained enough damage in a single attack to take him to -16 hp). Bummer. Needless to say, the monk finally defeated one of the beasts, and with very little life left, withdrew to a safe distance with a "dimension door" in order to do a considerable amount of healing! The rest of the party finally defeated their singular attackers, broke free from their icy prisons, and together the group defeated the last major devil. Afterward, we decided that the Paladin was enjoying his new status as the "Footstool of Pelor", and (after looting his corpse!) the body was burned and its ashes tossed into the wind. We will miss Jensen Bane. He was a true Paladin, and gave his life in the ultimate battle with Evil!

Long Story:
Adragil is/was a wizard/druid/mystic theurge. His familiar was an owl and his animal companion an eagle. Before leaving for the Library of Last Resort, Adragil (and two other party members) accepted an invitation to draw from a Deck of Many Things. Adragil drew The Balance and The Rogue, causing him to change to a dramatically different alignment and for a close ally to turn traitor. Adragil became NE.
While on the anchor Tilagos Isle, the eagle (the traitor) made contact with Krekie, and though Krekie, Filge (Darl Quenthos is Filge in my campaign). The party began adventuring in the full Tilagos Island, completing three of the four tasks (The Belt, the Thornvale Nightmare, and the Doomshroud). They know that Filge has completed three as well (Living Feather, Doomshroud and Thornvale Nightmare) because they saw from their rope trick that his group helped him raise the Thornvale Nightmare and kill it themselves.
Before going after Filge, who had indicated he was in the tallest mountain (by the Roc King's nest), the party buffed themselves. Adragil fired his eagle (it had been rather sulky the last few days). The party headed out, windwalking to the mountain. Near the top, Adragil (with his Amazing, super-buffed spot) noticed the eagle, which brought him a gem in its talons as a show of contrition. Adragil accepted the gem, only to learn that it was a trigger version of Trap The Soul.
Needless to say, hilarity ensued.

((Adragil's player wanted to switch back to an old character, so this was how the switch was made))

Long story: The party, with the doppelganger in tow (replacing one of the party's major spellcasters), enters the room with the planks over the water. The doppelganger heads out onto the beams, using "deception" in his conversation with the other party members. Since he has no problems, the rogue in the group heads out after drinking a potion of invisibility. Since neither of these two have difficulties, I'kale and the other two party members head out. The stalkers attack, but miss badly. Eventually, I'kale clambers to the northern landing with the group's paladin in tow. The gnome wizard is stuck on the beams, the cleric (Jameson, mentioned below) is falling in water and climbing out. The rogue, over by the door and still invisible, tosses a rope to I'Kale. The invisible stalker in the area swoops down and nails the rogue. I'Kale starts shooting at the stalker while the rogue tries to melee with it. After a brief battle, the rogue is down and the stalker heads over to I'Kale. This battle is brief, really just two hits--the invisible stalker critically hits I'Kale and I'Kale hits the floor.

(BTW, the end of this fight goes something like this:

Doppelganger and Cleric are on the eastern landing after having both just climbed up from the water.

Long Story: After being taken into unconsciousness by the doppelganger, the party wakes up to find themselves tied to chairs and facing outward in a circle. The spellcaster that the doppelganger replaced is really here, too. But the party wizard is gone (the player had to drop out of the campaign). Oh, and they have no armor or equipment.

The party escapes, battles through the hall of mirrors and confronts Telakin, who takes the form of the party wizard. A big battle ensues. The paladin and the Jameson rush Telakin and fall into the pits (the rogue had not yet examined that area of the room). The fight continues with Telakin surrounding the rogue and the ranger with a wall of fire and almost killing the rogue, who said something to the effect of, "I have evasion and a high Reflex save. I can just walk through this." The other spellcaster runs out of the room and back into the hall of mirrors. Telakin reverts to his barbarian form and chases. A couple of fireballs by the party spellcaster later and the ranger, who had followed them into the hall of mirrors came running back into the room smoking from the blasts. By this time, Jameson had climbed out of the pit and healed the rogue, who went walking back into the fray. Jameson heals the ranger just in time to catch a well-placed fireball from Telakin. The ranger and rogue (who criticalled) finally take down Telakin.

In the aftermath, Jameson was reincarnated. Now, remember from last time he died, Jameson is very Xenophobic and really hates elves. He was reincarnated as a half-elf last time. This time, his god saw fit to bring him back as, you guessed it, a full elf. (Gotta love those die rolls some times...)

PC Name: William Idol, Halfling Bard 8
Adventure: Champion's Belt
Location of Death: Caverns beneath the Arena
Catalyst: Blind, deaf ochre jellies
Long Description: Billy and the elven ninja Nathaniel decided they would explore the area around the Cenoby themselves, under a Silence and Invisibility Sphere. If they got caught, William could use his Hat of Disguise to look like a guard, Nathaniel could use his ninja abilities to get away.

Problem is, they came upon the cave with the ochre jellies. Thinking they were safe from them, they walked right beneath them. Whoops, forgot about the tremorsense. The ninja took off when the ochre jellies piled on the halfling, disolving him into nothing.

PC Name: Burr Gimblefoot, Halfling Cleric 6 / Radiant Servent of Pelor 2
Adventure: Champion's Belt
Location of Death: Wine celler beneath the Arena
Catalyst: Deadly secret door
Long Description: A group with four elves has no problem running across secret doors. The ninja searched it for traps, but didn't look hard enough to find the Slay Living trap. For some reason, the halfling cleric chose to open the door (because it was his player that said, "Open the door"). Failed Fort save, dead cleric.

PC Name: Nara, High Elf Fighter 8
Adventure: Champion's Belt
Location of Death: Hidden temple to Kyuss beneath the Arena
Catalyst: A Harm-ful Bozal Zahol
Long Description: Bozal did a good job keeping the party at bay (an Antilife Shell will do that for you), but that damn whip-monkey Lasher, Nara, first stole his club, then kept tripping him from outside the aura. So when he finally had to break the shell to get at the PCs, he went after Nara and hit her with a Harm spell. 110 damage does her in (even a successful save would have done her in). Good thing I decided to replace that crazy strand of prayer beads he's got, or it would have been 150 damage! (Plus, the PCs would have it right now...what a stupidly unbalanced item).

The party had used an antimagic shell to hunt down most of the worm nagas in the tunnels, but during the fight with the last three things got out of hand. First the party leader exited the shell to beat on one and became feebleminded. The cleric dropped the shell to cast another spell, then the druid was feebleminded. They dropped that naga, then the party had their idiot companions chase down the other two. The leader took out one, but the other one had gone invisible. As party members ran all over the tunnels (even right by the naga), the naga readied to slay living the next character that came close. Enter poor Ziggy. The naga didn't survive another round, but neither did Ziggy.

PC Name: Bootyalicious
Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows
Location of Death: Sruggats lair.
Catalyst: A Wizard stepping out of an antimagic shell when she shouldn't.

When faced with another worm naga the cleric promptly cast antimagic shell, pretty much hosing the naga. The enchantress cast magic jar, while the naga cast its power-up suite. But after its third successful save it used telekinesis to toss her body into the antimagic field, ending that. A few more rounds of the party using fairly ineffectual ranged weapons and the cleric decided to move up to Sruggat. The enchantress then moved in, but out of the shell as well. The naga then moved out of the shell and cast finger of death on the enchantress. Dead. The rest of the party then moved in and they readied to keep the shell on Sruggat. He had an opening though, and moved out into the hall and towards the sea of worms. When he finally jumped in the party ran back to the room and did a quick scan for treasure before teleporting away.

On the first foray into Bozal Zahol's lair beneath the Arena, the party took out Bozal and his undead minions, looted his fearsome chest with a lucky save by the party paladin, and investigated the strange scroll lying on the altar in the unholy shrine. Deciding that they were a bit low on resources and wanting to preserve some strength for the following day's battle against Pitch Blade, they retreated for the night. The next night, they came down to the lair again. The bard managed to wriggle his way down the pipe and discover the Apostle, gestating inside his protective barrier. Not knowing what to do, they investigated the unexplored region of the lair, beyond Zahol's bedchamber. The paladin whipped aside the curtain, and out popped the Alkilith, whose cone of cold badly wounded the paladin and nearly crippled Barbazad. Barbazad fled back to Zahol's room, while the paladin, cut off by a wall of ice, fled the other way, into the john, and shut the door. The cleric dispelled the wall of ice and ran to the paladin's aid, protected from the Alkilith's attacks by an invisibility spell. The Alkilith decided to go after the bard and the wizard, who were both in Zahol's room. Since they had made themselves invisible in the meantime, the Alkilith let loose another cone of cold. After the battle was over, Barbazad's frozen, invisible body was found in the doorway, one step from cover. The party bard sneaked out of the Arena and purchased a scroll of raise dead, so Barbazad was back in fighting form for the next day's contest.

Ribbit! The iron walls of the cage drop and Madtooth hops toward the party. The paladin, enlarged, moves forward to engage the huge beast, and is promptly slapped around by all four tentacles. Gwynaleth, thinking the paladin needs healing to stay in the fight, casts sanctuary and moves up behind him to render first aid. Next round, froghemoth pummels the paladin senseless, then grabs the Gwynaleth with his tongue, crushing her to -1 hp. On the following round, it was down the old hatch, and digestive juices did the rest. Poor Gwyn was cut from the beast's stomach after they slew it, and hauled off on a stretcher to the Sanctum of Hieroneous where Bishop Jaikor Demien called her soul back from Ehlonna's courts in the Beastlands in exchange for most of the prize money from this round of the contest. She will be watching the finale from the stands.

Note: Both of these characters are DMPCs. The DM should have been smart and had Gwynaleth stay clear of Madtooth, but he didn't. Lessons learned--never try to wrestle a huge creature with tentacles.

Adventure: The Spire of Long Shadows
Locations: On the road to Longsaddle
Catalyst: Wall of fire + wall of ice + barbed devils = character kebob

As the party slowly trudged across the countryside, the warlock, using his See Invisible ability, spotted the first group of two bone and one barbed devils. This gave the party an opportunity to take defensive measures, which included our hero casting a circular wall of fire around the party. This proved to be disastrous. A bone devil promptly dropped a wall of ice right down the middle of it, separating the two melee characters from the other three in a storm of steam.

This ring of fire had little effect on the devils, of course, other than it being opaque. So the barbs simply stood back and started throwing Order's Wrath and Unholy Blight while the boners started melee.

Jek, flanked by the party warlock (who could - and did - fly) and the rogue (who promptly fled) was soon trapped against the ice wall, double-dazed by the Wraths and badly hurt by the spells. Then the second wave of devils arrived.

Imaxian the barbed devil couldn't believe his luck when he stepped through the curtain of fire. A soul, ready for the taking.
"Come to me, little Snookums."

Two rounds later, including the only other spell that Jek was able to cast during the battle (which washed up on the shore of spell resistance), and the warmage was fatally skewered. The battle raged on for another couple hours. At no time did the party respond to the calls to "Give me the rod" with anything more than giggles.

The 14th fatality involving 13 characters, and we haven't hit the Spire yet.

It had been a rough week for Jek. Death by devil is bad enough, on top of that embarrassing "polymorphed into a monkey by Ilthane" incident, but then having to put up with that paranoid wizard before being sent on another "fetch" mission to some godsforsaken jungle was just asking too much. If it hadn't been for the lovely parting gifts, he never would have taken this assignment.

But here he was, staring into the hideous faces of two Swords of Kyuss and a wormcaller (DMs Note: 3 SoK = TPK). "'Just one more door', they said," he thought to himself. "'We whacked the angels - how bad can it be?' they said. Fortunately, my Black Tentacles did a magnificent job of catching them. Unfortunately, said tentacles prevented our minotaur/big stick from reaching them as well."

"Then the bombs started dropping. And my low-rent companions started running. And once again, I'm left facing down the horde, all alone.
What's that you say, Mr. Wormcaller? Hold Person? Urkk. But I haven't recovered from all those invocations yet. What's that? Flame Strike?"

"So that's why I'm back here again, Lord Savras. And just when I think I'm out, they whip out their Resurrection scroll and pull me back in agaaaaaaain..."

But here he was, staring into the hideous faces of two Swords of Kyuss and a wormcaller (DMs Note: 3 SoK = TPK). "'Just one more door', they said," he thought to himself. "'We whacked the angels - how bad can it be?' they said. Fortunately, my Black Tentacles did a magnificent job of catching them. Unfortunately, said tentacles prevented our minotaur/big stick from reaching them as well."

"Then the bombs started dropping. And my low-rent companions started running. And once again, I'm left facing down the horde, all alone.
What's that you say, Mr. Wormcaller? Hold Person? Urkk. But I haven't recovered from all those invocations yet. What's that? Flame Strike?"

OMG! This is almost exactly how the encounter went down when I ran it. The warmage cast EBT to deal with the angels (no minotaur in this group, just a gnoll). And the wormcaller did stop him with a hold person (only because he forgot about the ring of freedom of movement he was given). Lucky for him though, the cleric cast teleport before he died. By the way, when the party was prepared for the battle it was nowhere close to the massacre from the first time around.

First PC death of the campaign. After a gruelling 2-day standoff with the forces of the battle temple, the PC's were exhausted, low on resources, beaten and in a bad place. They had barricaded both sets of doors leading further into the temple and were holed up in the den of "Beast"

Theldrick had retreated for healing and to prepare new spells. Both he and the PC's priest awoke at dawn, on opposite sides of the temple, and cried out for their gods or war and battle for grim victory this day. Mere minutes after morning prep had ended, heavy axes wielded in undead fists began to smash through the barricades. Theldrick had animated his own followers.

The zombies proved easily defeated due to restricted movement, but their goal of clearing the barricades was complete. From the dark corridor and the main arena, tattoed guards fired their bows, drawing the PC's to them. Theldrick's second-in-command, a scarred woman priest, assisted from within the arena.

It's the party-killing tactic they bring on themselves. The one repeated over and over, and one that players never seem to learn from (at least not mine, in 10+ years of gaming together). They split up.

Some went down the corridor, after the guard and to engage Theldrick on the balcony. Others hurled themselves into the arena to battle the warriors and priest on ground level. One PC got shot through the throat with an arrow but was stabilized. One PC ran through the back rooms searching for an alternate route to the balcony...

Finn, just a nice guy trying to keep clean. A little addicted to Kalamanthis, kind of a screw-up in terms of the day-to-day Diamond Lake life. He remains in the arena, after the other PC's exit to confront their foes on the balcony. Theldrick completes his spell and a massive beast of corded muscle and flayed skin appears in the only place large enough to contain it. Right next to Finn.

The party doesn't even know he's dead until, minutes later, the only two PC's still walking come down and do a final search. Finn's body lies in a corner, gashed as if from a feral beast.

The party engages the Faceless One, two Kenku including the mage and three acolytes in the laboratory. The fight goes suprising well with the Vaughn, the warblade trapping the fiendish centipede inside a seperate room and Kalamar the Great, the party wizard summoning undead owlbears to hold off the kenku and the acolytes. Finally only the Faceless One is left, but with no allies left to block his way he unleashes the big boy attacks sending a lightning bolt through the warblade and Miera, knocking Miera unconcious. Gwarg the Rashemi barbarian charges the Faceless One in order to protect his witch, but ends up taking a lightning bolt to the face killing him and striking the unconcious Miera as well, slaying her. Kalamar hide behind a wall and casts his remaining few spells into the room and Vaughn manages to slay the Faceless One, but to late to save Gwarg and Miera.

Niladra, Miera's sister and Lokarg, an orc looking to slay the heretic Cult of the Ebon Triad return with Vaughn and Kalamar the Great to the mine and slay the remaining cultists. Piling Miera and Gwarg's body onto the main elevator they notice movement in the dark pool. The aspect of the Overgod bursts forth and assaults the party. As a spiritual weapon attacks the fragile old man, Kalamar, Vaughn and Lokarg assault the Overgod while Niladra tries frantically to keep them healed. Vaughn is knocked unconcious and healed several times before the Overgod turnsits attention to Lokarg knocking out and slaying him quickly. Niladra drinks a potion of gaseous form and hides, while Kalamar turns invisible and retreats into the Labyrinth. The overgod climbs the shaft and destroys the elevator. Leaving the Kalamar to force feed potions to the dying Vaughn and discover a way out.